Backroads and Ballplayers #113
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from a time when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly is always free and short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
This just in…My story about Costen Shockley and the Boom Boom Travelers is a feature in Only in Arkansas this week. Costen Shockley, Only in Arkansas
Clearing My Desk
Departing Thoughts on College Baseball - Good News for McCann, - Of Course, that was Roy Majtyka - and 1966!
College Baseball 2025
The 2025 Major League Baseball Draft will take place on July 13–14 in Cumberland, Georgia. Draft days and the days immediately following will mark the last time that college baseball will be the lead sports story of 2025. Of course, that could change. ESPN likes a good scandal if one comes along.
This is a different time in the world of elite college baseball. Rosters are built, lost, and rebuilt through something called a “portal.” So much a part of today’s baseball lexicon, the Transfer Portal is vital to the success of big-time DI teams and a scary reality for coaches and fans in less prominent programs, where more pro prospects depart rather than arrive.
These days, the SEC has more in common with the National League than the Great American Conference, and playing for an education is far different than preparing for a pro draft.
This past summer, we followed a Razorback lineup that featured some of the best players in college baseball. Although some met each other for the first time in August, they formed a great team, comprised of quality young men who represented their university and our state with distinction. Despite their individual ambitions, they played as if they had known each other since childhood.
Many 2025 Razorback baseball players probably couldn’t pick Brooks Robinson from a lineup, and most have never been to Petit Jean Mountain, but for one excellent season, they were our guys! So now…I hope things are going well in the roster rebuild.
I love baseball live and in person. It takes me about 5 minutes to get to Baswell Field at Arkansas Tech, the home of the Champions of the Great American Conference. These Division II guys were fun to watch. All of the Arkansas schools finished in the top half of the GAC and were in the pennant race until the last weekend. It was the old AIC all over again.
It is quality baseball, but the players aspire to be engineers, coaches, and businessmen, and they are not going to get a call on MLB Draft Day. They play a far better game than you would expect in DII. They are skilled, well-coached, and they compete as if a trip to Nebraska is at stake. Admission is free, the popcorn is world-class, and I can discuss the game with Coach Estes at Planet Fitness. Find a DII or DIII team near you next spring.
Thanks Will!
I have mixed thoughts about the final departure of Will McEntire as a Razorback. Like many of you, I will miss him both as an individual of high character and a guy who was at his best in some of the biggest moments of the last six seasons.
My most memorable of the many stories of Will’s years in Fayetteville is about a not-so-good time for him in 2021. He was alone in an apartment in Duluth, Minnesota, while his Razorbacks played in an NCAA Regional. That would have been a good time to transfer to UCA or UA Little Rock, but Will McEntire had always dreamed of being a Razorback, playing at Baum-Walker, and getting a college degree from the University of Arkansas. Although it was not a good time for Will, it was a classic Will McEntire event.
So…after an All-Star summer in Duluth, he came back to Fayetteville and became one of our all-time favorite players.
He lived his teenage dreams. Maybe he would have loved a National Championship or an SEC regular season title in a down-to-the-wire race with the Longhorns. We all would have liked those things, but that does not mean that this season with the Aloys, Gage Wood, Will McEntire, and the other great players did not produce one of Razorback Baseball’s most memorable seasons.
I am hopeful that someday we will see that National Title. I also hope some youngster in Bryant, or some other Arkansas town, is inspired by guys like Will McEntire to realize his dream of being an Omahog! Thanks for the memories, Will. You made us proud.
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My friend and subscriber Charles Gattin pointed out to Will’s dad this week that Will is one of only two college baseball players who played on college teams with two Golden Spikes Award winners in their college career. (D. C. Olson at Cal Fullerton, played with Nevin, and Kotsay.)
That is a positive piece of trivia that indicates the strength of a program and the character of a loyal player.
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Kevin Kopps Update:
I had promised to update the progress of Kopps this week, so Charles’ excellent detective work fits well with a report on Kevin Kopps. Time is the enemy of our guy who came from obscurity to post the most outstanding individual season in Razorback history.
That “most outstanding individual season” is a bold statement. My defense is below.
Redshirt Senior (2021)
-Golden Spikes Award
-Dick Howser Trophy
-Unanimous First-Team All-American (American Baseball Coaches Association, Baseball America, College Baseball Foundation, Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, D1Baseball, National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, Perfect Game
-D1Baseball National Player of the Year
-Collegiate Baseball National Player of the Year
-ABCA/Rawlings National Pitcher of the Year
-College Baseball Foundation National Pitcher of the Year
-Perfect Game Pitcher of the Year
-NCBWA Stopper of the Year
-ABCA/Rawlings South All-Region (First Team)
-NCBWA District 7 Co-Player of the Year
-SEC Pitcher of the Year
-All-SEC First Team
-SEC All-Defensive Team
-SEC All-Tournament Team
-NCAA Regional All-Tournament Team
-NCAA Fayetteville Regional MVP
-SEC Co-Pitcher of the Week (April 26)
-Collegiate Baseball Newspaper National Player of the Week (April 26)
-NCBWA National Pitcher of the Month (April, May)
-Perfect Game/Rawlings Pitcher of the Week (May 11)
-Spring SEC Academic Honor Roll
At the end of that up-and-down 2021 season for the Hogs, Kopps was called on to pitch far beyond the time in the game he needed to be relieved. His courage, grit, and his on-the-field accomplishments will remain as benchmarks of Razorback baseball.
It is hard to get my mind around the facts that he turned 28 years old in March and that he has pitched in 167 minor league games. He is a short reliever for the AAA El Paso Chihuahuas in the Pacific Coast League. About 40 players who have played, or are playing, for the Chihuahuas in 2025 have played major league baseball. Kopps has not.
He is still searching for “strike one.” His cutter-slider was almost unhittable that spring when he was college baseball’s best pitcher. It is still a swing-and-miss pitch. Although sources report slightly different batting averages for at-bats that begin 0-1, it is somewhere around .220. Like all other pitchers, Kevin Kopps needs “strike one.” If he can get ahead in the count, he can mix in that almost unhittable pitch out of the strike zone and be successful.
This is not big news. It was his lack of a secondary pitch that he could throw for a strike and not be hammered by a selective pro hitter that sent the Golden Spikes winner to the third round of the draft. It could still happen. He is pitching at baseball’s highest minor league level. This year, Kopps has appeared in 25 games. Twenty-four as a middle reliever. His Earned Run Average is 5.30. At age 28, time is running out.
If he never appears in a big-league uniform, his place in Razorback history is secure. He had the most honored single-season pitching record in team history.
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James McCann didn’t go home.
On Apr 09, 2011, with a record crowd at Baum-Walker and a national TV audience watching on ESPN, James McCann hit a walk-off home run to beat LSU 4-3. The timely homer has made several lists of “Greatest Moments in the History of Baum Walker Stadium.” McCann, a three-year starting catcher for the Hogs, is one of the most popular players in Razorback history.
McCann was drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the 2nd round of the 2011 MLB Draft. An All-Star season in 2019 earned McCann a multi-million-dollar free agent contract with the Mets, who subsequently traded him to Baltimore in 2023.
After two years backing up All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman, the Orioles released the 34-year-old catcher in October of 2024. McCann had earned about 50 million dollars in big-league baseball, but he didn’t go home.
The Braves gave McCann a look in the spring of 2025 but assigned him to their AAA farm club in Gwinnett, Georgia. Thirty-five years old with 12 years in the major leagues, McCann didn’t go home. He reported to AAA, where he hit .297 and batted in 30 runs in 41 games.
McCann obviously thought he could still play. In some sort of three-way deal, the Braves released McCann, and he signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks on June 23. The Dbacks also thought he could still play. He apparently can.
As of today, Monday, July 7, he is batting .400 with three RBIs in five games. His OPS is 1.260. Three singles to right field and three extra-base hits to left field.
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Roy Majtyka
A very unusual thing happened in June, not just unusual…historic. Dr. Keith Fudge of Van Buren, Arkansas, correctly named the Mystery Photo of the Month. Of course, it was Roy Majtyka! Come on, everyone remembers Roy. Fudge is an incurable baseball fan, and he is the guy you would have chosen for the “Call a Friend” option of the old “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” game show. He knows stuff!
The giveaway hint to Googlers was that he looks like Gold Glove shortstop Dal Maxvill, but he is not. Our mystery guy never won a Gold Glove. This guy is obviously holding one. Look closely. Roy is proudly holding a SILVER Glove awarded to an outstanding defensive second baseman in the minor leagues. In 1966, Arkansas’ Majtyka made only seven errors in 115 games and took part in 76 double plays.
Majtyka never played a major league game. After his minor league career, he spent two decades in pro baseball as a coach and minor league manager. He managed the Arkansas Travelers in 1975. Roy Majtyka died this past February in Wagoner, Oklahoma.
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1966
Ah 1966…I graduated from Ozark High School.
After the self-destruction of the Southern Association, the Travs had tried the International League and the Pacific Coast League. Neither was a popular nor a sensible fit. In 1966, the Travelers finally became the Cardinals’ AA farm club. The first year back in AA, the Travs won the regular season pennant. The 1966 season marked the beginning of a relationship with the Texas League and the locally popular Cardinals that would last until 2001.
On August 22nd, 1966, the name of Travelers Field was changed to Ray Winder Field, named after the 81-year-old Ray Winder, who had been with the team since 1915 as a ticket seller, general manager, and co-owner.
The Cardinals Farm Club years were great times at Ray Winder. Admission was almost always free, and food was cheap. Captain Dynamite blew himself up at second base EVERY SEASON, and Beulah, Junk Cars, and pony giveaways were part of the culture of the Greatest Show on Dirt!
Moose
I realize having obscure Travelers, forgotten Arkansans, and players from 100 years ago as Mystery Photo of the Month makes for a difficult little quiz. That is the intent. I could have made it harder. It could have been Moose.
In 1966, Lawrence George Stubing had played ten seasons of professional baseball. The offensive leader of the pennant-winning Travs was 28 years old and running out of time to get the big-league call. At 6’3” and at least 220 lbs, Stubing had earned the popular baseball nickname “Moose.”
For the Texas League pennant-winning Little Rock Travelers, Moose led the team in home runs (25), OPS (.860), and RBIs (71). Although he was a fan favorite in the first year of a new Cardinals farm club, his story is lost in the forgotten days of Ray Winder Field. After 60 years, he would have made a challenging Mystery Photo.
In 15 seasons and more than 1400 games, he traveled on the back roads of pro baseball. Stubing played in Brunswick, Georgia, St. Cloud, Minnesota, Tacoma, Washington, and El Paso, Texas. In 1966, he led the Arkansas Travelers to their first Texas League pennant. His .283 batting average was respectable, and his 192 home runs included 62 homers in two seasons in the thin air at El Paso, Texas.
In the season after his excellent year in Little Rock, Moose was hitting .328 in El Paso when the call to report to the California Angels finally came. Stubing would get five pinch-hit chances in his only opportunity to wear a big-league uniform. He struck out four times.
Moose Strubing stayed in baseball in some capacity until 2010. He also became an NCAA basketball official, working mostly in the Western Athletic Conference. Stubing called about 60 games a year, including NCAA and NIT tournaments.
Moose Stubing died January 20, 2018, in Santa Ana, California.
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Thanks for the shout out, Jim! Excellent column!